This invention is concerned with improvements relating to shredding machines of the kind such as are used to comminute documentary material, and particularly of the kind (hereinafter referred to as being of the kind specified) comprising a housing, cutting mechanism mounted on the housing, said mechanism comprising two shafts, each mounted for rotation about a respective parallel axis, and cutting discs mounted at spaced intervals on shaft, the cutting discs intermeshing and the shafts being rotated in opposite directions so as to provide a downwardly-accessible nip into which documentary material (such as paper) may be fed. The engagement between the circumferential edges of adjacent discs subjects of the documentary mateial to a plurality of longitudinal cuts, and the discs are provided with transverse cutting edges by which the material is subjected to a transverse severing. A machine of this kind is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,426,044.
Difficulties are encountered in mounting the discs on their respective shafts in a manner such that shock loading (which happens when a large number of cutting edges enter the nip simultaneously) is minimized, and in a manner in which there is no significant axial load on the discs, as may cause them to bind further. Desirably the discs are mounted on the shafts in a manner which is conducive to simplicity of manufacture and assembly.